Women's bobsledders torn by track's high speeds

By Nicholas Köhler - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 5:10 PM - 5 Comments

A Canadian posted by far the fastest results in the women’s first official bobsled training heats this morning, with Calgary pilot Kaillie Humphries reaching a blistering 146.9 km/h and finishing the track with a time of 53.24.

Speeds like that left some of the women at the Whistler Sliding Centre concerned. American pilot Shauna Rohbock—a Turino silver medalist and the second fastest in training today after Humphries, posting a speed in one heat of 145 km/h—called the Whistler Sliding Centre track “stupid fast” in an interview with the Associated Press after a supplementary training opportunity Friday. “I think they went a little overboard on this track.”

The venue, where 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died in an accident last Friday, is increasingly seen as troubled. Yesterday, two Swiss bobsled pilots withdrew from this weekend’s two-man competition, in one case for preemptive safety reasons, in another due to injuries sustained in a crash on the track.

Yet the speeds didn’t seem to trouble Rohbock’s brakeman, Elana Meyers, who Twittered last night: “We just went 145 km/hr…that’s fast!!! WOO HOO! Day 1 of training complete!”

Canadian pilot Helen Upperton, also from Calgary, came fourth in both training heats this morning, trailing teammate Humphries, Rohbock and Germany’s Sandra Kiriasis.

Upperton and Humphries have something of a history together. Humphries had been more or less designated Upperton’s brakeman in Turino until just days before competition, when she was dropped in favour of Heather Moyse (seen above, right, with Humphries at the Bob World Cup in Germany).

Sometimes, athletic rivalries aren’t limited to the international arena.

Men's hockey: Switzerland 5 Norway 4 (OT)

By Charlie Gillis - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 4:50 PM - 0 Comments

Goal at 2:28 goes to Romano Lemm, who collected the rebound. But wow! What an effort by Sandy Jeannin going to the net. Great goal.

Norway, meantime, has nothing to be ashamed of.

——————-

The Swiss get a nice goal on the power play by Severin Blindenbacher, who snuck in from the point for a tap in. The passer was Hnat Domenichelli, pride of Edmonton and a former Kamloops Blazer.

Then, inexplicably, they let Norway back into it. With 7:42 left, you have to think Swiss coach Ralph Krueger, who is from Winnipeg, is displeased.

The crowd in here is having blast. There are a lot of fans rooting for both teams (Canadians seem to favour Norway). Cowbells galore; a guy with a trumpet playing “Tequila;” a confused fellow wearing an HC Davos jersey with a Canadian flag as a cape. Someone blew up a giant, inflatable kangaroo and the crowd began bouncing it around.

On the scoreboard they just showed a guy with the Olympic rings reverse-shaved into his chest. By that I mean, he shaved away all the hair except the Olympic rings.

I think a lot of people didn’t get home last night.

Team Canada-game crowds are a bit boring by comparison.

————-

More evidence the Swiss were put on this Earth for the sole reason of making Team Canada miserable: they’re pooching against the Norwegians.

A Swiss colleague here in the press box says his county’s team “doesn’t like games where they spend most of the time with puck.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a hockey team that felt that way.

Table set for Super Sunday in men's hockey

By Charlie Gillis - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 4:44 PM - 0 Comments

When Jaromir Jagr arrived in the National Hockey League 19 years ago, he seemed like—what’s the right phrase?—a callow piece of Euro-trash. Great player. But what was with that two-fingered salute after he scored? And the omega-class mullet? And the cheap shots and the whining and the showboating?

But beneath Jagr’s Pittsburgh Penguins jersey beat a political heart.

Then, as now, the kid from Kladno, Czech Republic wore No. 68 in honour of the Prague Spring, and the year his grandfather died in prison. He revered Ronald Reagan, whose resolve against Moscow Jagr credits with the demise of  the Soviet Union (as a teenager, Jagr kept a photo of Reagan taped to his school notebook).

Every time he gets a chance to stick it to the Russians on the ice, he does.

He’ll get one more opportunity today, an enormous day on the Olympic hockey schedule. Not only will Super Sunday determine the playoff seeds—which teams get a bye to the quarterfinals, which teams must play qualifying games—it pits three great teams against their blood rivals.

First, the Russians must contend with the Czechs (3 p.m. ET). The ultra-talented Russians remain a gold-medal contender, and after losing to the Slovaks in a shootout on Thursday, Ovechkin, Malkin & Co. will be out for blood. But the Czechs have history to motivate them. And No. 68. At a ripe age of 38, Jagr’s no longer the callow kid, and he’s looked as good as ever on Olympic ice, raising speculation that an NHL team may try to sign him. He currently plays with Omsk Avangard in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League.

Up next is Canada and the U.S. (7:30 ET) The Americans salivating for a chance to chop down the sequioa spruce of the tournament on its home turf. Canada Hockey Place will be electric, with plenty of American fans to stir up the home crowd.

If you don’t think the players get caught up in the hoopla, check out this quote from Ryan Kesler, the hard-nosed U.S. forward who plays for the Vancouver Canucks, which is splashed all over the morning papers: “I hate them,” he said of the Canadian team, repeating the phrase for reporters who thought they heard him wrong. “It’s a big rivalry and for Canadians, it’s their game. I wouldn’t say I ‘hate’ them, but Canadians expect to win gold and anything else is not good enough. We obviously have something to prove, and it’s going to be fun to try to knock them off.”

So far Kesler’s been getting a warm reception from the hometown fans. Five’ll get you 10 he doesn’t this evening.

Finally, the Swedes take on their ancient rivals, the Finns (10 p.m. ET), who have had a relatively easy ride so far, beating Belarus and Germany. But they always get up for a game against the neighbours.

It’s a gut-check moment for Canada and Russia in particular. Everyone from Vegas oddsmakers to office poolers had them pegged as the top two teams in the tournament. As it stood before last night’s game, they were fifth and sixth overall, meaning they’d be forced to play qualifying games to reach the quarterfinal round.

Think Canada wants another outing against some wannabe Cinderella, like Switzerland? Or Slovakia, which boasts two offensive superstars (Marian Gaborik and Marian Hossa), a defensive one (Zdeno Chara) and a hot goalie (Jaroslav Halak)?

Neither do I. Deep breaths everyone.

Olympic Photos: Friday February 19th, 2010

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

The difference between the Sports and Cultural Olympics explained

By Anne Kingston - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:36 PM - 0 Comments

“Welcome to the Cultural Olympics where there is no drug testing”—Singer-songwriter-Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett, kicks
off the second, and last performance, of Hall Willner’s Neil Young Project Friday night.

Figure skating controversy

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 3 Comments

Lindsey Vonn

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

Whistler sliding centre

By macleans.ca - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

Ice Dance

By Shanda Deziel - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 0 Comments

'I've seen death. But Neda's innocence, the injustice of her death, and her gaze before she passed away means I can never heal.'

By Michael Petrou - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 2:05 PM - 1 Comment

The Iranian doctor who tried to save Neda Soltan’s life after she was shot by Iranian government goons last summer, speaks from exile in Britain.

Pro-government stooges in Tehran, meanwhile, smear his name and demand his extradition.

Party City

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 4 Comments

As the 2010 Winter Olympics enter their second week, there’s little question that the people of Vancouver have embraced the Games.

All those pre-Olympic worries about whether the laid-back West Coasters would show their pride and welcome the world have been put to rest—with a vengeance.

Nothing I have witnessed in three prior Olympics compares to the crowds thronging the streets of downtown. From very first thing in the morning, until well after closing time, sidewalks and public places are jam-packed.

During daylight hours the vibe has been fun, with lots of tourists and families with small children. At Robson Square, home of the BC Pavilion, people are lining up for eight hours for a 30-second zip line run, high above the crowds. Near the International Broadcast Centre, the Olympic flame was already a huge draw, despite the less-than-ideal viewing conditions. And once word spreads that VANOC quietly replaced the chain-link fence with plexiglass in the wee hours of this morning, look out.

The bars are packed all day long and filled with friendly ribbing as Canadians diss foreign visitors about the day’s performances and vice-versa. National colours, painted faces and flags as capes are the order of the day. (My favourite get-up so far was a guy in a kilt with a t-shirt reading “Opening Ceremonies Hydraulics Team.”)

But as the evening progresses things are getting a little ugly. Last night, the vast pedestrian mall on Granville Street seemed more like a riot waiting to happen than a street party. The crowd—young and homegrown (at least it sure smelled that way)—was closer to legless than tipsy. And there was a distinct edge to the pro-Canada celebrations.

Vancouver Police were out in force, gamely trying to dissuade people from drinking in public. But in contrast to their colleagues on the day-shift, the cops seemed tense, moving about in large, unsmiling groups, obviously girded for trouble.

Now comes word that the V.P.D has asked the Integrated Security Unit, the 10,000-strong, RCMP-led force in charge of venue security, for a hand in managing the crowds. It’s a wise decision.

Great moments in broadcasting

By Scott Feschuk - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 12:10 PM - 5 Comments

To build excitement, to get the ol’ juices flowing, the official TV feed in the Olympic media centres conducts a countdown at the beginning of each broadcast day – just as the morning’s first event is about to start.

I saw it just now. It’s kind of thrilling, actually: “30… 29… 28… etc. etc. 3… 2… 1…” – and having whipped us all into a frenzy of anticipation, the Olympic Broadcasting System cut Continue…

Jon Montgomery rides the slipstream into gold

By Nicholas Köhler - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 1:22 AM - 4 Comments

For sheer breakneck drama, not much could beat it.

The man we’ll now forever know as Monty charged down the corridor of ice at the top of the Whistler Sliding Centre track and hopped on that speeding bullet with all the economy and aplomb of a gunslinger drawing his pistol.

Jon Montgomery, the second-to-last to race in the men’s fourth heat—to be followed by front-runner, Latvian Martins Dukurs—got off to a half-second lead over his nearest competitor, Russian racer Alexander Tretyakov.

Then, flying down the ice, Monty started spinning his magic, stretching the yeast of that .5 lead into .6, then .7 until, slipping into home, he stood to wait for the final time.

When the 1.06 he now held over Tretyakov popped up on the screen, the Canadians in the crowd went mad. Montgomery had secured the silver, that was for sure, but what would Dukurs do?

The Latvian, 25 and the skeleton man to beat, started off strong, maintaining a lead of a quarter of a second or so.

Then he hit a wall—what he would later call his “black corner”—oozing ever so sluggishly out of the seventh turn. As the crowd watched Dukurs lead bleed away, the Latvian sped late into the ninth corner.

Standing by a huddle of Canadian reporters as Dukurs slipped through a massive band of white on the jumbotron above, Jeff Pain, the 39-year-old vet who’d finished his final Olympics in ninth place, gasped: “He’s got the gold!” he said of his teammate.

For Pain, who lost the top spot on the podium in Turino to fellow Canadian Duff Gibson, picking up silver, and who will now retire, this was a bittersweet occasion. Teammate Michael Douglas had earlier that night been disqualified, over the trifle of failing to remove the sheaths from his runners. And Mellisa Hollingsworth, favoured to medal in the women’s, had clunked in at fifth.

Now, with Dukurs race over, the final pronouncement: on screens around the sliding centre, a +.o7 slipped into view.

Watching 30-year-old Montgomery—a prairie kid from southwest Manitoba going against the grain of geography by throwing himself into the steep dives and wicked turns of skeleton—recognize his golden moment, Pain had come to the end of the line.

What next? “Who knows? Ballroom dancing? Curling? Something,” said Pain.

And what next for Montgomery, a used car salesman and auctioneer with a maple leaf tattooed over his heart?

“I’ve got doping, then I hope a beer, then tomorrow’s a blank slate. It’s a good unknown. I’ll take it any day.”

So will we.

Jon Montgomery

By Shanda Deziel - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 12:58 AM - 0 Comments

Canadian skeleton racer Jon Montgomery wins gold

By Shanda Deziel - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 11:57 PM - 1 Comment

Jon Montgomery, 30, a car salesman and auctioneer from Russell, Man., won the men’s skeleton in a tight battle against Latvia’s Martins Dukurs, who took silver. Canada’s other medal hopeful Jeff Pain placed 9th, racing with a torn oblique muscle. Another Canadian athlete, Mike Douglas, missed the deadline for having his sled’s runner blades exposed 45 minutes before competition—and he was disqualified from the race before his third run.

CTV

Mellisa Hollingsworth deals with a pertinent question

By Nicholas Köhler - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 11:10 PM - 10 Comments

Mellisa Hollingsworth was doing a poor job of fighting back tears, finishing up her media-imposed analysis of what must be one of the worst days of her life—coming a dismal fifth in the women’s skeleton tonight after arriving as a very strong medal favourite—when she was surprised by a most unexpected query.

“Mellisa,” came a voice from the fringes of the scrum. “I have a different type of question for you. Do you still identify with your Estonian roots?” The question came from an older woman surrounded by a group of imposing men. “We are Estonian media,” she explained.

Who knew that Hollingsworth, the 29-year-old who grew up in a rodeo family from Eckville, Alta., was really an Estonian. For a second, Hollingsworth, standing in the cold of the media corral at the Whistler Sliding Centre, didn’t seem to know either.

She had started the evening off behind a couple of imposing Germans and the U.K.’s Amy Williams, after the first two heats last night. But on her sled—built by her cousin Ryan Davenport, a Canadian skeleton legend himself, and called, like a long-shot horse that delivers big on the betting track, White Lightening—Hollingsworth still seemed to have much left in reserve.

She’d had a strong season, destroying any contender on the World Cup circuit and taking seven podium finishes in eight races, along with two gold medals, wearing a helmet emblazoned with the image of a horse’s skull. And here she stood in tears, a bronze winner in Turino with such high hopes for more now left with nothing, those two Germans, a lightning-fast elfin Brit and an American ahead of her.

“Do you still identify with with your Estonian roots?” The Canadian media had dealt with Hollingsworth like fragile crystal, but nothing had prepared her for this. “I’m Canadian,” she said, holding aloft a small Canadian flag.

Then, just as quickly and with no further discussions, Chris Dornan, who handles media for the sliding sports, amongst other things, grabbed her arm and she was gone, striding past a query asked at precisely the wrong time. Down at the end of the press box, where the athletes go alone, Dornan gave her a long hug.

Canadian alpine ski team empty-handed: "It sucks"

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 10:25 PM - 6 Comments

If honesty were an Olympic event, Robbie Dixon would be wearing a shiny gold medal around his neck. The Canadian skier—fresh off another disastrous run on the slopes of Whistler—was as candid as they come during his post-race chat with reporters. “It sucks. It hurts. I’m pretty pissed.”

Dixon isn’t just peeved about his own performance, a crash and burn during today’s Super G slalom. His entire team has failed to live up to the hometown hype that followed them to the 2010 Games. With four alpine events now finished (two men’s and two women’s) not a single Canadian downhill skier has earned a place on the podium. “It’s a bummer,” Dixon said. “There were definitely very big expectations coming in here, and I think those expectations were legit. They weren’t far-fetched. We had the tools and we had the coaching staff and everything we needed, and the fact that we’ve come away empty-handed, it’s hard to swallow.”

As the Canadians slump, their U.S. rivals are thriving. Bode Miller captured silver in Friday’s Super G—his second medal of the Olympics—while Andrew Weibrecht snatched the bronze. (Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won gold.) The American skiing squad now has six alpine medals in total, and with six more events to go, that number is almost certain to climb.

And how’s this for adding insult to injury? When asked why the U.S. team is performing so well, Wiebrecht suggested that the Americans feel at home in the mountains of British Columbia. “We’re on North American soil,” he said. “And we always seem to have better results when we’re at home or closer to home.”
That home snow advantage was supposed to be the key to our success on the hills (not to mention almost $2.2 million worth of “Own the Podium” funding for 11 specific skiers, Dixon included). As first reported in Maclean’s, Alpine Canada even went so far as to equip the team with missile-guidance GPS systems during practice, which allowed coaches and racers to dissect every inch of the Whistler course and find the best routes for attacking gates and turns. So much for that.

“I’ve learned that there are only three positions in ski racing that count: one, two and three,” Dixon said. “Fourth and beyond really don’t count. All I can take away from this is the fact that I was able to race in the Olympics for my home country in my backyard—on my home hill. It is something that no one can take away from me and it’s pretty special. But I came here, obviously, to win, and that didn’t happen.”

One Canadian skier did come close to the podium today: Erik Guay. The Quebec native immediately followed Svindal’s gold-worthy run with an impressive performance of his own, good enough for fifth. At 1:30.68, Guay finished only 0.34 seconds behind the winner—and the only thing standing between him and the bronze were three measly one-hundredths of a second. If not for a slight mistake coming around the third gate, Guay may have been just fast enough to redeem the rest of his underperforming team. “There’s not much I can say,” he said. “I’m a couple hundredths from third place, a couple hundredths from second, and three-tenths from the victory. It was in my grasp. It was there today.”

Despite the top-five finish, Guay also acknowledged the obvious: that by this point in the Olympics, people expected so much more from Canada’s alpine team. “It is disappointing for us and I think for Canada also,” he said. “We were here to deliver medals and we wanted to deliver medals, but it just didn’t happen.”

No one symbolizes that disappointment more than Manuel Osborne-Paradis, the 25-year-old who cut his skis on the slopes of Whistler when he could still barely walk. Whether he liked it or not, the B.C. native was the public face of Alpine Canada, the same one featured in that CTV commercial saying “losing is not an option.” Losing, unfortunately, is what he did. Osborne-Paradis placed a disappointing 17th in Monday’s downhill event, and in today’s Super G, he crashed long before the finish line. His Olympics are now over.

Over the past two years, Osborne-Paradis has done his best to downplay the Games, at one point saying he would rather win the overall World Cup skiing title than an Olympic gold. In the lead-up to Vancouver, countless reporters asked him how he was going to handle the pressure of skiing in front of hometown fans. His answer was always the same: I’ll treat it like every other event. This afternoon, standing in front of reporters yet again—his medal hopes dashed—he was asked whether the pressure finally got to him. After a long pause, he answered this way: “I liked the pressure. I liked the fact that people’s eyes were on me and wanted me to do well, because I think I’ve always done better like that. The expectations push you harder. I liked it. There was a lot of it here, and it was more than we’ve ever had, but I don’t think I succumbed to anything. I think it was just a good opportunity, and it was an opportunity lost.”

Do Canadians have a right to be disappointed, not only in you, but the rest of your teammates? “They have a reason to be disappointed,” he said. “Everybody has a reason to be disappointed. That’s what the expectations were—and that was our expectation, too.”

The meaning of Ellen (on American Idol)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 9:49 PM - 9 Comments

Herein, the fifth in a semi-regular series chronicling the ninth season of American Idol. You can read the first installment here, the second installment here, the third installment here and the fourth installment here.

America in 2010 is a confused place. Americans are of deeply held, but divergent and often contradictory, opinions. On some disagreements they are even unsure as to what they’re disagreeing about. In a recent poll, prompted by renewed debate over the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, 1,084 Americans adults were asked whether they favoured or opposed “homosexuals” being allowed to serve openly in the armed forces. Forty-four per cent of respondents were in favour, 42% were opposed. When the same 1,084 American adults were asked whether they favoured or opposed “gay men and lesbians” being allowed to serve openly in the armed forces, 58% were in favour, 28% opposed.

And now here, at this particularly peculiar moment in American history, is Ellen DeGeneres, an openly gay woman taking her seat to the left of Simon Cowell, appearing in prime time television on the Fox network to judge a wildly popular, nation-defining talent show.

What to make of this?

It is tempting to make something of the fact that, while openly gay men and women cannot yet officially fight to protect and preserve the American Dream, they can sit in judgment of those who pursue it. But that would be glib. And it would probably exaggerate the significance of Ellen’s arrival on American Idol. It is probably more accurate to conclude that however confusing America can be, it is also easily underestimated.

Ellen is at once the most subversive and the least objectionable person in American public life and maybe the best current demonstration of the American Dream. Thirteen years ago, she announced she was gay in big red letters on the cover of Time magazine. Two sitcoms of hers subsequently flopped, but she has since hosted the Oscars, the Grammys and the Emmys, become the star of a popular daytime talk show, been paid to represent American Express and Cover Girl, and married a beautiful TV actress with an exotic-sounding name. Last year, Forbes deemed her the 40th most powerful celebrity in America, slightly less powerful than Tom Hanks, but slightly more powerful than Eddie Murphy, Jay Leno and Barack Obama. Out magazine currently ranks her the second most powerful homosexual, behind only Senator Barney Frank.

She combines the best elements of Woody Allen and Oprah, somehow cerebral and heartfelt, self-effacing and generous. She’s uncompromising, but never more than she needs to be. The defining three minutes of her career to date might be her shrugging dismissal in May 2008 of John McCain’s position on same-sex marriage—possibly the nicest, but most efficient, deconstruction of a politician and a political position in the history of television.

She debuted last week as a judge on Idol, kissing Ryan Seacrest as she arrived and quickly settling into the role with relative ease. Without dominating the proceedings, she has already established herself as the über-judge: empathetic, but mischievous; blunt and biting, but also encouraging. She watches with deep concern in her eyes and beams when contestants succeed, but will quickly scold the off-key. She prizes confidence. She arrived in time for the final round of auditions—dubbed Hollywood Week, it is essentially a televised social experiment meant to see how many desperate young singers can be made to cry on camera—and seemed determined to impose some degree of humanity on the affair.

On paper, it might not make sense that a populist, explicitly Middle-American television show pitched to a nation openly grappling with the perceived ramifications of homosexuality could, with reasonable success, put a quirky, openly gay woman in a position of prominence. But she fits. If there is anything remarkable about her inclusion on Idol, it’s how relatively unremarkable it seems.

On paper, America is a confusing and messy place. But it is almost always better than it seems.

Great moments in placards

By Nicholas Köhler - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 8:05 PM - 0 Comments

Leave it to the Brits to boil a word down to its diminutive essence and then take their shirts off. “Shelly on her belly winning gold in the skelly,” read one sign, held aloft by a no-doubt hard-nippled group of cold English youngsters, a tribute to the sledding excellence of the UK’s Shelley Rudman. Rudman is seventh in the race after her third heat. “Skelly” and “belly,” meanwhile, will soon become part of the lexicon at Masters and Johnson.

Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko sounds off about losing to American Lysacek

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 7:56 PM - 15 Comments

What can Buddhism teach Tiger Woods?

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 7:51 PM - 26 Comments

Tiger Woods isn’t in the habit of revealing much about his personal life. Even when he was apologizing for the string of affairs that landed him in “inpatient therapy,” the golf superstar let it be known he wouldn’t be going into the nitty-gritty of how he plans to make it up to his wife, Elin Nordegen, nor would he let everyone in on the extent of his romantic conquests.

“I understand the press wants to ask me for the details and the times I was unfaithful,” Woods said. “I understand people want to know whether Elin and I will remain together. Please know that as far as I’m concerned, every one of these questions and answers is a matter between Elin and me. These are issues between a husband and a wife.”

The one detail Tiger did want to share with the public is that his quest for redemption will follow the long American tradition of including a spiritual component. “Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age,” he said. “People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint.”

Continue…

What are the Games without a figure skating scandal?

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 7:43 PM - 17 Comments

With a column titled “The Night They Killed Figure Skating,” Canadian figure skating legend Elvis Stojko joined critics—including Russian prime-minister Vladimir Putin—in slamming Evan Lysacek’s gold, calling the decision to award Russian Evgeni Plushenko the silver, “ridiculous.”

He said Lysacek’s program was on par with a junior program, and it was no more developed than what gold-medallist Brian Boitano did in 1988.

For days, debate has been boiling away over the quadruple jump (who can do it, who can’t, whether you need to land it to take gold), and whether the new scoring system is killing the sport. The so-called Code of Points system, which replaced the old, 6.0, was brought in after the infamous judging scandal at Salt Lake; it is said to have shifted the focus away from jumping, to a more balanced program.

But Stojko says the International Skating Union has taken the risk out of figure skating, and it makes him sick.

“Figure skating gets no respect because of outcomes like this. More feathers, head-flinging and so-called step sequences done at walking speed—that’s what the system wants.” Stojko also said he was going to watch hockey where “athletes are allowed to push the envelope—a real sport.”

“Just doing nice transitions and being artistic is not enough because figure skating is a sport, not a show,” Plushenko told a Russian TV station; he too has slammed Olympic judges, and has threatened to quit the sport over the outcome in Vancouver.

Good luck getting a pair of those red mittens now

By Anne Kingston - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 7:00 PM - 0 Comments

The Bay’s $10 red Olympic mittens—already the most popular item of  its 2010 Olympic clothing line—officially catapulted into “iconic” status when Oprah Winfrey gave them a shout-out on today’s program starring U.S. snowboarder and gold medal winner Shaun White. Within seconds of the show’s airing, one New York Post journalist working at the Olympic media compound was fielding calls from relatives demanding he stock up on the woolly memorabilia, much to his distress. “Now that the ‘Oprah effect’ has kicked in, they’ll be impossible to get,” he moaned.

UPDATE: Rights and Democracy: So that's what you were doing in Ottawa when I saw you a couple of weeks ago, Peter

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 6:46 PM - 200 Comments

The Rights and Democracy board announces it has hired Samson Belair/Deloitte and Touche to rummage through the agency’s books for the past five years. Reporters are invited to direct their inquiries to the new freelance communications company that interim president Jacques Gauthier has hired, to go along with the freelance office manager, the freelance private investigator, and the blue-chip audit firm he’s put on the public payroll in his never-ending efforts to get value for the taxpayer dollar. Now, guess who picks up the phone when you call Prima Communication. Go ahead, guess. Give up? Hint.

UPDATE: Peter Stockland writes in the comments to this post:

No, it wasn’t, Paul. It had nothing to do with why I was in Ottawa. But you wouldn’t know that because even though you know me personally, you didn’t give me the courtesy of contacting me before posting this or sending out a Tweet suggesting some kind of nefarious agenda on my part. If you had bothered to contact me, you would have learned that I am trying to help the board of Rights and Democracy resolve exactly the sorts of issues you raised in your earlier blog about waiting 10 days to get answers. So, now we know what I am doing. But the followup questions arises: what are you doing, Paul? What kind of journalism are you doing these days? What is YOUR agenda that requires using nameless single sources, drive-by personal smears, groundless accusations? Who are you playing to exactly? I’d like to know.